The invention is based on a fuel injection pump as defined hereinafter. In a fuel injection pump of this type, known from German Patent 37 28 961, a fuel injection pump, which comprises a pump element and supplies one cylinder of an engine with fuel, is inserted into the engine housing. The pump element is composed of a pump body that receives a cylinder liner and a pump piston guided in a cylinder bore of the cylinder liner; the pump piston is axially moved by a cam drive counter to the force of a restoring spring. With its face end remote from the cam drive, the pump piston defines a pump work chamber in the cylinder liner; via a fuel line in which a magnet-controlled reversing valve is disposed, this pump work chamber can be made to communicate with either a high-pressure line leading to a location where injection is effected into the combustion chamber of the engine to be supplied, or a line that discharges into a fuel-filled low-pressure chamber. All the connection points of the fuel inflow and outflow lines, the faces that effect sealing with respect to the magnet valve and the cylinder liner, and connecting conduits are disposed on the pump body; hence a great number of expensive machining operations, of varying precision, are needed.
This problem is even more pronounced in compact pump bodies, which are intended for use when the available installation space is small and are made as "monobloc" elements, and which, as known from German Offenlegungsschrift 39 43 183, not only have to have all the connections but also have to perform the function of the cylinder liner. Not only must the sealing faces at the connecting points for the fuel lines and adjacent components be machined, but the high-precision cylinder bore must be produced as well; because of the rotationally asymmetrical contour of the pump body, this requires a very major engineering effort and according is very expensive.